6.Pop-up ODD Device

The Pop-up Mobile External device comes in a rather simple box.

Nothing fancy, just a typical design for such drives.

At the bottom you can find the included USB cable.

Opening the drive we came with a little surprise... Apparently the Chinese manufacturer placed a sticker at the device with several markings/warning that prohibits us to unveil the real drive manufacturer.

Hmm..this interface looks kind old..maybe its IDE?

The adapter is also different than other drives.

Connecting the device to the test PC, we find out that the PopUP external device is based upon Optiarc AD-7560A drive with firmware from 2007! That's kind old if you ask me.

After several searches, we managed to get a compatible firmware from Sony (look for EP0000600079.exe at google.com)

and we upgraded the drive at DS06 firmware revision DS06.

The drive while seems to support C1C2 with OptiDriveControl software doesn't work and with Nero CDSpeed while you can get some readings after a while the drive stops....so this drive isn't capable of reporting C1/C2 neither PIE/PIF errors.

As was expected, despite the fact that the drive is advertised as USB3.0 (and has the corresponding cable), in reality its connected with USB2.0 (high-speed).

Using the latest EAC (Exact Audio Copy) software we are able to detect important drive features, especially concerning Audio CD Ripping. The drive does support C2 error info and doesn't Cache Audio which will result higher ripping speeds.

We found around the web the product specifications, mostly for the inner drive

• Read Speed:
  DVD-ROM 8x (max. 11,000 kByte/s)
  CD-ROM 24x (max. 3,600 kByte/s)
  
• Write Speed:
  DVD-R: 8x max. DVD+R: 8x max.
  DVD-RW: 6x max. DVD+RW: 8x max.
  DVD-R DL: 6x max. DVD+R9: 6x max.
  DVD-RAM: 5x max.
  CD-R: 24x max. CD-RW: 24x max.
• Access time: DVD: 180 ms CD: 150 ms
• Mechanism: Tray-in DVD- and CD-media-load
• Interface: IDE
• Burst transfer rate: 150 Gbit/s
• Cache: 2 MByte
• Media supported:
  DVD-ROM, DVD-R (DL), DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD+R9, CD-ROM, CD-R and CD-RW
• Modes supported:
  DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, CD-I Ready, CD-Bridge, PhotoCD, VideoCD, CD-DA, CD Extra, CD Text
• Writing methods: DAO, SAO, TAO with zero gap, variable or fixed packet, multisession
• Compatibility:
  MultiRead, MS Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/ Windows 7® compatible
• Weight: 170 g
• Dimensions: 12.7 mm(H) x 128 mm(W) x 129 mm(D)
• Special features: Dust protected enclosure, buffer under run error prevention